Alan is my hero

Dear Alan,

I wish you many years of good health and good fortune after your retirement. I believe you know what you have meant to me over the past forty years. And I hope you don’t find my memories that I am recounting from our more youthful years embarrassing. But, I want Nan, Michael, your friends, your colleagues and your students to know what a wonderful force you have been in my life as a mentor and dear friend.

Best wishes and much love,
Marion

Dear loved ones and friends of Alan Lebowitz,

Alan is my hero. I met him in Mississippi in the summer of 1964. The summer of ’64 was dubbed, “Mississippi Freedom Summer”, because many political activists, scholars, artists, and free spirits converged in Mississippi that summer to be involved in the civil rights movement. Alan was one of a group of Harvard professors, instructors, students and alumni who had come down to run a summer program at Tougaloo College, a predominantly African American school where I was a student.

It was amazing to me that these people had come down to Mississippi knowing that earlier that summer three civil rights activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, had been murdered. The previous summer the NAACP Field Secretary, Medgar Evers, had been assassinated. Coming to Mississippi in those days was a serious and dangerous undertaking. Yet, this group from Harvard seemed undaunted by the situation. They seemed oblivious to the likelihood that Klansmen might drive by the Tougaloo campus at any time to fire off a few gunshot rounds. They had come down armed with books, musical instruments, great ideas, senses of humor, and a focused determination to share a more enlightened view of how lives can be lived. It was an impressive group of people.

Alan Lebowitz, Monroe Engel and Bill Alfred team-taught a class. Each came down for a few weeks to teach a literary work. Bill Alfred taught Shakespeare’s “King Lear”, Monroe Engel taught Faulkner’s “Light in August”, and Alan taught Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”. However, the class turned out to be a remedial reading class. The Tougaloo freshmen, who were required to take the class, and the public school teachers from Jackson, who were there to get professional development points to be able to keep their teaching jobs, were not responding to the teachers’ efforts to engage the class in discussion about the reading assignments. So, we read the great works aloud in class. I liked that; it gave me an opportunity to see how much the Harvard instructors loved the literature they were teaching. Before that experience I had never seen teachers so enthusiastic about the subjects they were teaching. I had never seen anyone so passionate about literature.

Until this day I can still say the summer of ‘64 was the most exciting time of my life. It was also a defining period of my life. My sense of myself began to change dramatically. I remember the moment my new awareness began. It came as an epiphany in Alan’s class while we read “The Metamorphosis”. It was an incredible coincidence that my own metamorphosis began while reading Kafka’s story. During our discussion Alan noticed that I kept pulling for Gregor Samus to emerge from the bug to become himself again. He asked me with an “it’s-time-to-face-reality” but sensitive tone, “What do you think is going to happen?” And before I could answer, he added, “He’s going to die.” His words hit me hard. I was use to “they lived happily ever after”, and “they rode off into the sunset” endings.

Also, Alan didn’t realize that in my mind Gregor Samus’s condition had become symbolic of my mother’s illness. She was in an advanced stage of breast cancer. Over the previous months I had seen her deteriorate from a healthy extremely active individual to a very sick person who couldn’t get out of bed without help. But, I hadn’t given up hope that she would get better. It was at that moment in Alan’s class that I accepted the fact that my mother was dying. I had to fight back the tears. But, I will never forget the compassion that Alan showed me and the lesson that I had learned. There is something liberating and empowering about facing your reality, no matter how cruel a reality it is.

After the class we walked across the campus to the dining hall. Other than comments about the Spanish moss that hangs from the trees on the Tougaloo campus, I can’t remember what we talked about. But, I remember feeling that it was a new day. I had never had a teacher who was so approachable and who seemed to understand me. Already I felt comfortable being with him and free to say what was on my mind without wondering if I would be misunderstood. I could hardly wait to get to know him better.

One evening Alan took my friend, Eddie, and me to Jackson for dinner. I had gone into Jackson as part of an interracial group before, and I knew that anytime an interracial group went into Jackson that it was considered a demonstration against the status quo. Before going into town we would make sure that someone knew where we were going and what time we expected to be back on campus. Sometimes we would contact the NAACP legal office to see if there was bail money available, just in case we were arrested. But, with Alan it was different. I can’t remember what the drive in town was like. But, I remember the restaurant and the dinner. There was no apprehension. It didn’t feel like a demonstration; it was more like three friends out for dinner. Alan seemed relaxed and not at all concerned about being the only white person in the restaurant. Eddie and I were just excited to be there, feeling like adults. It was our first time eating in a restaurant.

I spent as much time as I could with the Harvard group. I sensed that by spending time with them and learning from them that I could make my life different. But, I had no idea then how different it would become. As the end of summer approached, knowing that I would not be returning to Tougaloo, Alan and others from Harvard suggested I move to Cambridge.

I arrived in Cambridge that fall with seventeen dollars and three telephone numbers, Alan’s, Bill Alfred’s, and Monroe Engel’s. The kindness that the Harvard group showed me then and has shown me over the years is monumental. Within a week after getting to Cambridge, I had an apartment and a job at Widener Library. A whole new world had opened up for me, and I went into it with the enthusiasm of a country boy who had been let loose in the city. Cambridge was an exciting place in the sixties with the peace and love movement budding. It truly felt like the hub of the universe. There were so many places to go, so much to do, so much to learn, and so many people to meet.

Alan provided me a safe harbor. One night each week he and his wife, Joyce, would have me over for dinner. I looked forward to seeing them and telling them all the things that I was doing and about all the people I was meeting. Alan was my life coach. He would listen intently to my recent adventures to see how I was adjusting to my new life. Then, he would give me a pep talk. Sometimes he would say, “Be careful. It sounds like you might be spreading yourself too thin”. By the time I knew what he meant by that, many years later, I was suffering the consequence of not following his advice.

My mother died that winter, and for the first time that I can remember I felt lonely. This was the most painful moment I had ever experienced. I called Alan. He picked me up and took me to his house for the night. I don’t know what I would have done without him that night. I’m just thankful he was there, and didn’t have to go through that alone.

The list of the things that Alan has done for me is long, including getting me into Harvard, taking me to my first football game, taking me to my first musical, listening to my stories, being my mentor, giving me my first dress jackets, being my friend, and forgiving me for my faults. In my mind he is among the greatest individuals to ever walk on planet earth.

Peace and love,
Marion